The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus having a liquid droplet ejection recovery function that employs suction to discharge liquid from a liquid ejecting head.
Since an ink jet recording apparatus produces only a comparatively low printing noise and can form small dots at high density, this recording apparatus has been employed for many types of printing, including color printing.
The ink jet recording apparatus includes a recording head for receiving ink from an ink cartridge and a paper feeder for moving a recording sheet relative to the recording head.
As the recording head is moved in accordance with a print signal, ink droplets are ejected onto the recording sheet, whereon dots are formed for recording. In this case, when recording heads that can ejects colored inks, such as black, yellow, cyan and magenta inks, are mounted on a carriage, full color printing may be performed by changing the colored ink mix ratio.
Since to perform printing using a recording sheet on which ink is ejected as droplets through the nozzle openings of the recording heads, a problem that the adverse effect as to residual ink is occurred on the operation of the ink jet recording apparatus. As the solvent in residual ink evaporates at the nozzle openings, either the viscosity of the ink is increased or the ink solidifies on the nozzle formation face and dust adheres to and clogs the nozzle openings. Thereafter, as this process is continued, air bubbles enter the recording head and a printing failure occurs.
Therefore, in addition to the recording head and the paper feeder, the ink jet recording apparatus includes a capping member for sealing the nozzle formation face of the recording head during a non-printing period, a vacuum pump for removing and expelling ink that accumulates in the capping member, and a wiping member for cleaning the nozzle formation face of the recording head after the ink has been removed by the vacuum pump.
In order to prevent the occurrence of clogging at the nozzle openings and the entry into the recording head of air bubbles, the vacuum pump forcibly removes ink from the recording head and the capping member and expels it, while the wiping member cleans the nozzle formation face of the recording head (wiping).
The forcible ink discharge process performed to prevent the clogging of the recording head, or to remove air bubbles from the recording head, is called a cleaning operation. This cleaning operation is performed when printing is resumed after the recording apparatus has been idle for an extended period of time or whenever a user becomes aware of the occurrence of a printing failure, such as image fogging, and manipulates a cleaning switch.
For the ink jet recording apparatus, the sealing (capping) position of the capping member, relative to the nozzle formation face of the recording head, varies depending on the manufacturing accuracy and the precision with which the individual components are assembled.
In this case, when the manufacturing accuracy for the components is reduced, the capping member (cap) is shifted to a predetermined sealing position, and is brought into contact with the nozzle formation face of the recording head.
To avoid such shifting, guides are provided on both sides of a slider. The guides guide the capping member to a capping position during the capping operation, while the positioning of the capping member is restricted by the guides in the width direction of the recording head. Therefore, the cap is brought into contact with the nozzle formation face at the predetermined sealing position.
However, for the related ink jet recording apparatus, since the guides are provided on both sides of the slider in which the inner-guide size is set by adding a clearance to the size of the recording head in the width direction thereof.
As a result, during the capping operation, the capping member is shifted slightly away from the predetermined sealing position in the width direction of the recording head, and can not seal the nozzle formation face at the predetermined position, which thereby prevents an increase in the capping accuracy.